Scene Stealer

WILLOW GRACE FARM, the name etched on the gatepost at the entrance of Jim Burrows's 200-acre estate in Millbrook, New York, seems suitably pastoral. It is also a whimsical wink at Will & Grace, the Emmy-winning sitcom Burrows directed for its eight-year run. "The show paid for most of the grass here," he quips. Burrows -- who also directed Friends, Frasier, and 11 years of Cheers, and whose latest series is CBS's Gary Unmarried -- lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Debbie, and the youngest of his four daughters, Paris. But since he was raised primarily in New York, he likes to spend summers, fall weekends, and Thanksgiving with his family on the East Coast amid the verdant landscape of Millbrook, a quiet village north of Manhattan.

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The Colonial Revival house took three and a half years to design and build and was completed in 2007. "It was an ordeal, but we love it up here," Jim says of the five-bedroom, 9,000-square-foot structure created to feel like an old farmhouse. "We didn't want it to look like a brand-new place that was just plunked down," Debbie says. To that end, a dilapidated late-18th-century dwelling they had previously purchased in the nearby town of Ghent provided the template. "Jimmy loved the feeling of that old house but realized he wanted more air and light," says the couple's architect, Gil Schafer III, whom they commissioned to re-create the ambience, sensibility, and period details of the Ghent house at their new Millbrook property. To salvage some of its weathered patina, they harvested its floorboards, door hinges, beams, and other antique fixtures for Willow Grace Farm.

But the beauty of the building is only part of the Millbrook estate's allure. From its hilltop perch, the home offers uninterrupted 30-mile views of the Berkshires to the east and Shawangunk Mountains to the west and a dazzling panorama ablaze in reds and golds in autumn. For Debbie and Paris, who are keen equestrians, acres of rolling hills are ideal for riding.

The inviting interiors -- a soft, restrained palette and historic charm coupled with 21st-century comfort -- were designed by Los Angeles-based Michael S. Smith. "I wanted it to have a sense of being a real country home," the decorator explains. "It's a horse farm, not a gentleman's suburban mansion." This is the fifth house Smith has done for the couple. "At this point, he knows exactly what we like, which makes it so easy to work with him," Debbie says.

Their longtime professional relationship -- and friendship -- began after Jim fell for and promptly snapped up an L.A. abode that Smith had decorated for Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford. "Michael's a genius," the director says. "He's got an eye like a great artist." On their antiquing trips together, he notes, Smith consistently uncovers objects perfect for the house. Such is the designer's commitment that after one successful outing he sat in the back of a truck in the rain protecting a newly purchased side table. "I just wanted to make sure it didn't fall out," Smith says.

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Some of their favorite pieces enrich the surprisingly intimate double living room. There's the cozy assortment of country armchairs, all with casters for flexible seating arrangements, a linen-damask-upholstered Regency sofa, an antique Sultanabad rug, and a stately circa-1800 Hudson Valley neoclassical mantel (a matching fireplace anchors the opposite side of the room). "A lot of these things we found at auction six years ago in London before the Millbrook project began, and we've moved them from house to house," Smith says. "That's why Willow Grace Farm has an eclectic, kind of quirky feel." In the adjacent library, the antiqued finish of the plank floorboards was achieved with a formula their contractor mysteriously refers to as railroad varnish. It's an airy space brimming with books by Dickens and Balzac that the homeowner inherited from his father, Abe Burrows, a Pulitzer prize-winning Broadway impresario who cowrote Guys & Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

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For the dining room, the decorator selected an old-fashioned billiard-table light overhead and a glossy mahogany Georgian dining table, adding red tufted-leather dining chairs for a jolt of color. The sepia-washed, early-19th-century-style wall mural reflects the views at Willow Grace Farm. Communion with nature is also the appeal of the enclosed porch, where, Jim notes, "I spend most of my time." Floor-to-ceiling windows, liberal doses of wicker, and primitive American furniture "make you feel like you're in a transitional area between the outside and the inside," Smith says.

On the second floor, exquisite 18th-century-style chinoiserie wallpaper with tree peonies and bright-plumed birds is installed in the master suite's bedroom and sitting room. The subdued blue-gray pattern gives a genteel, old-world backdrop to a Smith-designed sofa and antique mahogany four-poster bed curtained with pale-yellow fabric. Standing at a bedroom window, Jim points outside, through the enormous branches of a towering oak. "Our landscape gardener made us keep the tree, thank God," he says, referring to acclaimed designer Deborah Nevins. She also cleverly arranged the driveway so the house dramatically appears for the first time as you round the final curve. "Millbrook has an inherent natural quality to it," Smith says. "So I wanted to have the house be a place where there's mud and dogs and horses, not people dressing up and looking fancy."

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